Roads That Lead Away From This
by a.k.a.-ashley
Summary: Peyton, Lucas, Sawyer. Five years in LA.


**Roads That Lead Away From This**

-Peyton, Lucas, Sawyer. Five years in LA.

* * *

Sawyer is eight months old when Peyton gets the offer.

Mia's gone platinum again, and her tour is selling out shows, and the guys in fancy suits in LA finally catch on to the fact that the small town girl from North Carolina knows what she's doing, and does it well.

John calls her at the studio on a Friday afternoon while she's thumbing through contracts and schedules, Sawyer asleep in the bassinet next to her desk. He offers her the chance to expand her label, which means an assistant and a full-time staff, more money for more artists, and more money for her.

When she asks for the catch, he pauses before telling her they want her based in Los Angeles

* * *

She's stretched out on the couch in the living room, Sawyer perched carefully against her bent knees, their baby girl cooing and smiling, when Lucas walks through the door. He's got that sloppy grin on his face that only comes after a night out with his brother, and when he leans down to kiss her she can taste scotch on his lips.

"How are my girls?" he asks, sliding beneath Peyton's legs to sit on the couch before he scoops Sawyer from her lap and presses a kiss into her feather-soft blonde hair.

"We're good," she smiles. "How about you, you didn't drive home like this did you?"

"Nathan dropped me off." He smiles wide at Sawyer, kissing her cheeks until she smiles and waves her arms wildly. He looks over at her from across the couch, and narrows his eyes at her. "What's up with you Wily, you look like something's on your mind?"

"I kind of have news," she says, sliding her legs off of his and sitting up next to him. "John called me today, Sire Records wants me to expand my label."

"Babe, that's great news," he grins widely, and then off the look on her face, he questions her news. "Isn't it?"

"Taking the offer means we'd have to move to LA."

"Oh," he says, his face falling before he looks at her, a reassuring smile suddenly gracing his face. "How soon should we start looking at houses?"

"Honey, I'm serious."

"So am I."

"This is a huge decision Luke, it would mean uprooting Sawyer, and leaving our friends and our family. You have the basketball team, and I don't even know if I want Sawyer growing up in a city like that, you know?"

"Peyton, do you want this?"

"I think I do."

"Then go for it. You deserve this, baby. I can write from anywhere, and Skills can take over the team, and I swear to you that Sawyer will grow up to be a completely normal and well-adjusted child no matter where we end up." He leans in close to Sawyer's face, touching his nose to hers, "I promise."

"I just never pictured leaving Tree Hill again, you know? This is our home."

He touches his fingers to her chin, and smiles sweetly at her. "My home is wherever my girls are."

She kisses him then, his words settling softly in her heart. "John gave me a week to consider the offer, and I just want us to be absolutely certain about any decision we make for this family."

"Ok," he says. "And whatever decision you make, you know I'll support you."

She moves silently across the couch and pulls herself tight into his side, resting her head on his shoulder and tucking her fingers into Sawyer's small hands, smiling as her little girl gives her fingers a soft squeeze.

* * *

Seven days later he's reading on the back porch when she drops a stack of papers into his lap, and printouts of West Coast real estate spill over onto the wooden deck.

"Yeah?" he asks, looking up at her, a broad smile playing across his mouth.

She nods, sitting in his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Let's go to LA."

* * *

They break the news to their friends over dinner.

Nathan mutters a congratulations around a mouthful of steak and Haley hugs them both excitedly, knowing that this bigger label could mean something for her too. Brooke drops her fork on her plate, and crosses her arms.

"You're taking my niece away?"

"Yeah, I figured that we'd take her with us, Luke and I have kind of gotten attached." Peyton laughs softly, before catching the fallen face of her best friend.

"What am I supposed to do without you guys?" Brooke says quietly, her face falling. Sawyer sleeps soundly in Peyton's arms, and when Brooke leans over to brush her fingers across her hair, she stirs softly. "I'm going to miss her so much. And I'm going to miss you, and LA is just so damn far away."

"We're going to be back you know, for Thanksgivings and Christmases, and we're keeping the house here so we can come back for a few weeks in the summer. And even from across the country you are always going to have a place in Sawyer's life. I promise you that."

"I love you, Peyton Scott," Brooke whispers.

"I love you too."

* * *

A week later they're across the country looking at houses.

Sawyer stays with Brooke, and they spend four days with a pushy real estate agent who drags them all across LA, showing them house after house, none of which feel right.

On their last day she takes them just out of the city to Venice, a city full of artists and musicians and independent businesses, and Lucas already likes it a hell of a lot more than LA. Their agent drives them to a neighborhood she swears they'll love, and they're both skeptical at first until they pull up to a sky blue, two-story house along the maze of canals that Venice is famous for.

The house is two blocks from the beach, the canal running right through their backyard, and the way the porch wraps around the entirety of the house reminds her just enough of home.

"I think this is it," she says, pacing the empty room down the hall from the master bedroom, the one she can already see as Sawyer's nursery.

"I was thinking the same thing," he grins.

* * *

They spend their last night in Tree Hill drinking and laughing with their friends, waiting until the last possible moment to say their goodbyes. Brooke cries, Haley cries, and Nathan hugs them both in his silent, stoic way, before he leans down to drop a soft kiss on Sawyer's forehead. And that's when Peyton cries.

They walk the few miles home, both their cars loaded up on a car carrier headed for California followed by a moving truck filled with their possessions, their entire lives moving slowly away from Tree Hill. They end up at the River Court, Peyton pushing Sawyer in her stroller, and Lucas standing at half court, his hands jammed into his pockets as he looks over the court.

"Sometimes I feel like our entire history is somehow wrapped up in this place, you know?" he's talking over his shoulder, still facing the water when she comes up behind him and wraps her arms around his waist. "I used to watch you drive past when I played here after school, those blonde curls catching in the wind. I remember finding you here after Friday night games, and the way my heart raced when I saw you back here for the first time in four years, and how I spent hours sitting on the concrete painted with your lyrics before I found the courage to stand up and finally follow my heart. In those moments you become just as much a part of this place as I was. I think I might miss this place the most."

She presses her cheek against his shoulder blade and breathes him in deeply, "I wish that Sawyer could have grown up knowing this place, this town. I always had it in the back of my head that when she was older you'd teach her how to play here and it would become a part of her too."

He's silent for a beat, and then he's digging in his pockets, pulling her across the court with his free hand while her free hand carefully maneuvers Sawyer's stroller along for the ride. She knows where he's headed, and when he starts to trace his fingers across the various carvings in the worn picnic table near the edge of the court, she knows what he's looking for.

He'd shown her the careful carving during their senior year, sometime between his championship game and her departing flight for LA. He runs his fingers over the worn grooves of their first initials, _L+P _carved into the wood just hours after he'd laid eyes on her for the very first time (_all skinny arms and a tangled mess of hair_) with the pocket knife his uncle had given him.

He pulls that same knife from his pocket now, and after careful cuts he brushes away the splinters of wood and reveals their daughter's first initial carved next to theirs. She runs her fingers over the marked wood, tracing _L+P+S _with a smile on her face before she kisses him sweetly on the temple.

"So she'll always be a part of this place too," he says softly.

* * *

Their first night in Venice is spent on the floor of their empty new home.

The moving truck is behind schedule, still a day away with all their belongings, and so they spend their first night sleeping on a pile of hastily purchased blankets set up in what will eventually be their living room, while Sawyer sleeps soundly next to them in the portable crib that Peyton lugged onto the plane, just in case.

They lay with the windows open, letting the sound of the rolling Pacific waves slip in through the breezy curtains. She curls into him, her mouth against his neck, and his fingers trailing across her arm while they let it sink in.

"I know we talked about getting a nanny once we got settled, so we could both still work, but I've been thinking about that. What if I stayed home with Sawyer? It's silly to have a nanny come over so I can lock myself away in my office to write. I want to spend that time with her, and write when it fits into my life."

"So you want to be a stay-at-home dad?" she smiles, propping herself up so she can see his face.

"Yeah, I really do."

"And that would make me, what? Your sugar mama?"

"Of course," he smirks, before squirming under the playful pinch of her fingers.

"You're a good man, Lucas Scott," she leans over to kiss him, softly at first, then her tongue traces his lips and the kiss becomes something more, hands on bare skin, and slipping beneath the cotton hem of t-shirts. She pulls away eventually, her heavy breath ghosting across the flushed skin of his cheeks, a wicked smile playing over her face. "But I'm going to need to see a complete resume, and a list of personal recommendations before I can give you the job."

He laughs loudly before pulling her lips back down onto his, the ocean air blowing cool against their heated skin.

* * *

Their first morning in Venice is spent on the beach.

They have hours before the moving van arrives, so they wrap Sawyer in a blanket and walk the two blocks along the canal to get to the ocean. The beach is quiet early in the morning, a handful of people walk along the water, bypassing the doting father dipping the feet of his baby daughter into the cool Pacific water for the very first time.

Sawyer laughs that unmistakable baby laugh, her arms flailing wildly as Lucas scoops her back up into his arms and peppers her face with gentle kisses. Peyton stands a few feet away, clicking away with the camera hanging from her neck.

They've become those parents, where every smile, every feeding, every nap that results in a cute pose, is captured on film. They've got hundreds of pictures and hours of video of Sawyer doing the same mundane things that every baby does, but to them, knowing how close they came to never having these moments, everything she does is extraordinary.

Later, Sawyer sleeps in Peyton's arms, with Lucas next to her on a blanket spread out across the beach. They bury their feet in the sand, and watch the waves roll out onto the shore.

"I think we're gonna do good here," she says.

He looks over at her, his fingers threading through hers, and he smiles. "Me too."

* * *

The first two months in LA are hectic, between settling in her family and trying to establish her label on this new coast, there are a lot of late nights in her new office.

She has an assistant now, Claire, a songwriter from Santa Monica who wants a spot on the label but for now fetches coffee and schedules her appointments. She hires a few A&R guys, and someone to manage the office. They've already signed three new artists, and when Mia breaks up with Chase, she follows Peyton and the label out to LA to start work on her next album.

She comes home one night to a quiet house, Lucas sprawled out across the couch while a basketball game plays on the tv. She drops her bag near the door, and toes off her shoes before she crosses the living room and settles her weight on top of him, exhaling the breath she's held all day against his neck.

"Your dinner is in the oven," he mumbles across her forehead, his hand tracing along her back.

"I'm too tired to eat. I just want to sleep for a week."

"Well before you go to sleep, I should tell you that we had a pretty exciting day here today."

"Yeah?"

"The kid took her first steps."

"She walked?" She looks up at him and sees the proud smile on his face, and she can't help the sinking feeling in her chest. It's the first time work has kept her from one of Sawyer's milestones, and it stings to know it probably won't be the last.

"She did," he laughs, then he catches the crestfallen look on her face. "It was more like three shaky steps across the living room floor then any actual walking."

"Hey, you don't have to downplay it for me. You're excited and you should be, it's a big deal. Our baby girl walked. I just wish that I hadn't missed it, and I hate that it was work that kept me away. I was going to leave early today, then there was a problem in the studio and it took me three hours longer than it should have to fix," she sighs, and moves up his side to kiss him on the chin. "I don't want to miss more things."

"We're both going to miss things, and that doesn't mean that we love Sawyer any less or that our careers are more important. It just means that sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we're going to miss things," he speaks softly, his fingers running through her hair. "There will be other moments though, other firsts, I promise you that."

Six weeks later when Sawyer says her first word, "Mama" as clear as day, she's sitting on Peyton's lap, the two of them nestled together on the couch, listening to records on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

* * *

They've been in California for eighteen months, and not much in their lives has slowed down. Sawyer turns two, and then all too quickly, two and a half, graduating from shaky steps across the living room to surer-footed sprints around her swing-set in their small backyard, her tangled mess of blonde hair blowing wildly across her sweet face. Lucas has 10,000 words of a new novel started, and the list of things Peyton has missed grows almost as quickly as her label.

Mia writes an album full of angry break-up songs, the one good thing that comes out of being dumped by a carpet salesman turned bartender. There are comparisons to Kelly Clarkson, a rave review from Spin, and she's suddenly shot to badass rock chick status when her album debuts at the top of the Billboard charts.

It takes three weeks for her album to go platinum, and through an old connection, Peyton gets her a three page spread in Rolling Stone. Mia hits all the usual points, her humble beginnings, getting discovered, calling out Chase for being unable to handle her success. And then she makes a point of mentioning Peyton by name, talking about her loyalty, the unwavering faith she had in an unknown act, that she owes her entire career to Peyton Scott and Red Bedroom Records. It's a blatant attempt to silence the other labels, the same ones that have been seeking her out in the wake of her sudden success, offering her money, signing bonuses and big fancy cars, all an attempt to lure her away from the small label they tell her can't take her any farther. And it works.

Peyton signs ten new artists to the label that year, five of them come within two months of the article coming out. Mia gets a bonus, and Peyton gets to work longer hours.

He knows the way it wears on her, spending so much time away from them. He can see it in the dark circles beneath her eyes, and the guilt that sometimes clouds her face when she slips into Sawyer's room long after she's asleep, her hand ghosting over her baby's blonde hair while she watches her sleep. On those nights, when he steps into the nursery and pulls her away from the crib, she whispers that she's going to work less and he knows that she really wants to mean it.

* * *

Amidst all the chaos, there are some days when everything goes right, and their life feels normal.

There are mornings when she's rushing around their bedroom getting dressed for work, and he looks over at her from their bed, his head peeking out from beneath the warm blankets and with sleep still thick in his voice he says, "I am so in love with you". She smiles as she drops her shoes and climbs back into bed with him. Lucas pulls the blanket over their heads, and she's late to work.

Some days he brings her up lunch, their chatty toddler and cartons of Chinese food in tow. The three of them spread out on the floor of her office, picking at lunch while Sawyer recaps her day in the limited vocabulary of a two and a half ear old. When she tires of playground talk, Sawyer climbs into Peyton's lap and twists her small fingers in the curls of her mom's hair until she drifts to sleep. She holds her sleeping girl for as long as she can, until meetings and paperwork call her back. She watches them disappear down the hall, Sawyer's head tucked into the crook of her father's neck, and then her assistant is at the door to her office with a stack full of messages and a reminder about her afternoon meeting.

* * *

There is a rare weekend off, no cell phone, no laptop, her attention completely focused on Sawyer and Lucas. They spend a lazy Saturday afternoon at a park, Peyton blowing an endless stream of bubbles that float just out of Sawyer's reach. Her little girl is all smiles, laughing and yelling, until her foot catches a rock and she lands hard on the pavement.

The little girl is stoic at first, climbing to her feet and brushing the dirt from her palms, and then she looks down at her knees and the freshly shredded skin, and she starts to cry. Peyton scoops her up into her arms, holding her screaming child to her chest in a futile attempt at calming her. It isn't until Lucas makes his way over that Sawyer stops crying. It's unthinking the way Sawyer reaches for Lucas, pulling away from Peyton to wrap her little arms around her daddy's neck, her post-tears hiccups muffled by the fabric of his shirt.

Peyton can feel Lucas' eyes on her, but she can't look at him, knowing that if she does that she might need comforting of her own. He reaches for her, but she pulls away to scoop up Sawyer's toys.

It's like a knife to the heart, and she can't help but feel like it's her own hand plunging the handle in deeper.

* * *

She's at the office, rushing through last minute e-mails in order to make it home for dinner at least once during the week, when she gets a call from Haley. They talk about business, the modest success of her latest album, when she'll have enough songs ready for the next, and that's when Haley stops her. There is barely concealed excitement in her voice when she tells Peyton she has to put the new album on hold because she's pregnant.

There is an ache low in her stomach when Haley tells her, a sharp mix of jealousy and longing that lasts the 45 minutes of rush hour traffic, and long after that. She makes it home in time to push her dinner around her plate and kiss Sawyer goodnight before she escapes to the back porch, hoping to find solace with a glass of wine and the distant sound of the ocean.

She's on her second glass by the time he finds her. He sits next to her on the bench, taking the glass of wine from her hand and sipping slowly. There is a long silence, Peyton staring out across the yard while Lucas tries to think of something to say to her.

"I feel guilty," she says quietly. "I've spent the last two hours feeling sorry for myself, thinking about all the babies we'll never be able to have."

She'd asked the doctors, not long after Sawyer had been born, if she would be able to carry a baby to term again, and the answer she'd gotten was a carefully worded _maybe_. She'd thought of Lucas and Sawyer in that moment, of how close she'd come to missing out on her life with them, and she knew that _maybe_ wasn't a risk she was willing to take anymore.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting another baby."

"There is when I barely see the one we have now."

"Peyton," he leans into her then, draping his arm across the back of the bench and resting his forehead against her temple. "You're a good mom," he whispers across her cheek, and when he presses a kiss to her skin he feels her tears on his lips.

"LA was supposed to be good for us, but I've missed so much of our life out here. Sawyer's almost three, I feel like she's growing up without me, and it's killing me, Lucas. A part of me wishes I'd never expanded the label, that we'd have just stayed in Tree Hill and lived a comfortable life so that when my daughter scraped her knee she'd run to me too."

"Peyton, you were always meant for bigger things than Tree Hill, North Carolina. And I want you to do what makes me happy, but I won't tell you to give up the label or that this was all a mistake. I tried to make you give up your dreams when we were younger, tried to drag you back to nothing in Tree Hill, to a comfortable life where neither of us would ever become anything other than what we had to be, and I won't do that again," he leans in close to her, trailing his fingers down the back of her neck, and speaking in the softest, most reassuring voice she's ever heard him use. "And our girl, our sweet baby girl, she loves you just as fiercely as her father does. Nothing will ever change that."

"I love you for believing that, for believing in me, but I can't keep going the way I have been, being consumed by the label and putting my family second. It's eating me up, Lucas. I'm ready to step back and re-evaluate the things in my life."

He looks over at her with a lazy tilt of his head and says, "This is your call, and I support you in whatever decision you make, but I have just one request."

"What's that?"

"That we stay in Venice, if we can. Being out here, it feels like a fresh start, you know? All that baggage we carried back in Tree Hill, it stayed there, and I feel lighter because of it."

There is a sudden tightness in her chest, listening to her husband be just the slightest bit vulnerable, and he smiles at her when she reaches for his hand and presses a gentle kiss to his knuckles. Then he tells her that he also really wants to learn how to surf, and she laughs and swats him on the arm with an open palm before pulling him from the bench and up the stairs towards their bedroom.

* * *

She takes a week off work and they drive up the coast towards Monterey, the three of them piled into the Comet, a few suitcases in the trunk and the entire discography of The National playing over the stereo.

They stay in a little hotel by the ocean, spending slow days at the aquarium looking at fish and letting Sawyer talk them into buying her bright red balloons that they tie around her wrist, and then they go down to the beach and chase her across the sand, Sawyer's laughter getting carried away by the wind, her red balloon trailing wildly behind her. When her little legs tire out she reaches for Peyton, who scoops her up into her arms and holds her tight.

It's inevitable, the way a sleeping Sawyer will eventually wake from her nap, pad across the hotel room, and slip in between Lucas and Peyton, in the midst of their own Sawyer-induced nap. Peyton wakes one afternoon to a stuffed pig wedged under her chin and a small foot pressed into her ribs. There is an ocean breeze blowing through the sheer curtains covering the open windows, and when she turns to look at her loves, Sawyer with her arm draped across Lucas' chest, their faces bathed in the afternoon sunlight, she thinks that in that moment that she has never loved them more.

Sawyer stirs awake minutes later, her golden hair in a scattered mess across her face. She stretches the sleep from her tiny frame, her hand grazing Peyton's cheek, before she tucks herself into her mother's side. Peyton brushes the wisps from Sawyer's face, and the little girl looks up at her, eyes still heavy from sleep and says, "I love you, mama."

Peyton kisses her on the forehead, and it's all she can do to keep from calling John and quitting the label on the spot.

On their last night in Monterey, they're laying in bed, Lucas half-watching a basketball game, Sawyer asleep in the next bed, when she leans over and kisses him. It starts innocently enough, but eventually she ends up with her back pressed into the mattress, Lucas settling his weight on top of her, his hand tangled in her hair.

When she slips her hands beneath his shirt, the tips of her fingers running along his sides, he pulls back and pushes himself off her, sitting back so he's straddling her legs.

"What?" she says, pushing the hair from her face, her breath coming out in desperate gasps.

"We can't," he says.

"Why the hell not?" It comes out a little more aggressive than she'd intended, and he looks at her with raised eyebrows and laughs. She sits up as best as she can, her legs still trapped underneath him, and laughs into his mouth before wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him backwards.

"Sawyer's right there," he manages to say in between the small gasps that escape him as Peyton drags her teeth along his neck.

"Lucas, she's asleep." She rolls her eyes when he shakes his head. "Luke, it's been forever."

Realizing that he isn't going to change his mind, that he's discussed on more than one occasion the absolute horror that would come from Sawyer walking in on the two of them having sex, she pushes him off her legs and yanks him unceremoniously by the hand off of the bed and into the bathroom.

When her back is pressed into the shower tiles, her legs wrapped tight around his waist, he leans into her and whispers, "I've missed you," into her hair. It's the last bit of convincing she needs.

They're two hours from Venice when she looks back at a sleeping Sawyer tucked into her car seat with her stuffed pig, then turns to him and with absolute certainty says, "Six months, and then I'm asking John to buy out my share of the label."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. I mean Mia's off making movies now, Haley's having another baby, and I'll always love the label for what it's given us, but I'm ready to move on too."

She unbuckles and slips across the bench seat, pressing a kiss to her cheek before tucking herself into his side. For a moment, everything feels right.

Six months later, their new nephew is born on the same day that Peyton leaves her office for the very last time. She calls Haley on the drive home, the new mom sounding exhausted and happy, Peyton keeping her on the phone just long enough to congratulate her and Nathan, promising to come and see the newest Scott soon, before she hangs up and stares out over the standstill of rush hour traffic. When she gets home, Peyton scoops Sawyer up into her arms and carries out to her swing set, the little girl's happy cries floating up into the air until the sun dips below the horizon.

* * *

Her life slowly transitions from label meetings and contract negotiations to play groups and early morning walks down to the beach, tucking Sawyer into bed every night to read her favorite story over and over until one of them can no longer hold their eyes open.

She starts to paint again, for the first time in years, setting up her easel in the lush grass of their backyard, painting in bare feet with her hair tied up in a messy ponytail. When her brush hits the canvas for the first time she can't tell if it's the view of brightly colored houses lining the opposite side of the canal, or the little girl in the grass next to her, dropping blobs of paint onto her own canvas, but Peyton can't remember ever painting with such bright colors.

Her renewed passion in art brings new opportunities, and she finds herself investing in an art gallery a few blocks from their house. It's a small space, exposed brick and hardwood floors, sandwiched between a surf shop and a coffee house, but it feels like her, like something she was always meant to do.

Peyton and Sawyer walk to the gallery one afternoon, looking at a few new pieces that have just been brought in. They stay for a little while, Peyton pacing the gallery while Sawyer sticks close to her, mimicking her mother's movements until she notices and scoops the little girl into her arms, promising her ice cream on the way home for being so good.

Sawyer talks her into two scoops, and as they walk home along the boardwalk, Peyton holding tightly to Sawyer's free hand, ice cream melting around the corners of the little girl's mouth, she looks up with absolute seriousness and asks, "Mama, can I have a brother?"

* * *

Peyton keeps Sawyer's question to herself for a few days, until Lucas comes home from New York where he's spent the last two days in meetings with his new editor. Sawyer is attached to his hip the moment he walks in the door, and the two of them spend the rest of the day spread out on the floor of the living room, drinking fake tea from tiny pink cups, his pinky held high up in the air while he takes dainty sips much to Sawyer's delight. Peyton watches them from the doorway, a gentle smile playing on her lips.

They're laying in bed later that night, Lucas half-asleep from the jet lag, his arm tossed over her abdomen while she flips through a magazine. And when she can't hold it in anymore she trails her fingertips across his arm until he starts to stir.

"Honey, are you awake?"

He grunts into his pillow, before rolling onto his side and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "I am now," and she smiles at the complete lack of annoyance in his voice.

"It's just, your daughter said the damnedest thing to me while you were gone, and I thought you might want to know what it was."

"Was it something bad? Because you only say 'your daughter' when she does something bad."

"She asked me for a baby brother."

He's quiet for a few minutes, and then he sits up, pressing his back against the headboard and turning to look over at her. "I know we like to spoil the kid, but this would be kind of a big gift."

"Be serious," but she can't help the grin on her face.

"Have you thought about it?"

"It's all I've thought about the last few days, and if I'm being totally honest I've been thinking about it for a lot longer."

"So have I."

"Maggie, the secretary at the gallery, she gave me the number of an adoption agency in LA. Her daughter went through them, I checked them out, they're very reputable. I was thinking that maybe we could make an appointment, just to get some information before we make a solid decision."

"I'll clear my day tomorrow."

She looks over at him, the way his eyes dance across her face, the broad smile playing on his lips, and then she leans over to kiss him.

* * *

They spend the next year waiting.

Sawyer starts pre-school and becomes a bit of a tomboy, mixing tutus with superhero shirts, and devastating Lucas when she gravitates towards soccer of all sports. She spends hours in the backyard kicking around a ball, and the unruly mess of blonde hair scattered across her face never fails to remind Lucas of the first moment he laid eyes on Peyton, and it makes him smile. His book becomes a bestseller that year, the art gallery thrives, and the room that used to be their office is empty now, the walls painted a neutral green and an unfinished crib tucked away in the closet.

They tell Sawyer about getting a new brother or sister, and she understands as well as any four-year-old can. Peyton and Lucas spend the first few days assuring her that they will still love her just as much, and that things in the house will change but it will all be for the better, but all Sawyer cares about is when her brother is coming. After a few weeks, and some gentle prodding to be patient, Sawyer promptly forgets all about her new sibling.

For Peyton, there is always the gentle reminder of what awaits them when she catches a glimpse of a baby when they're walking along the canal, or when Haley sends pictures of a growing Connor. She resolves to wait patiently, but the crib stays unfinished in the closet for a reason.

And then one day the phone rings.

It's a Monday afternoon and the three of them are spread out in the living room. Lucas reads a book, stretched out along the length of the couch, his socked feet propped up in Peyton's lap while she flips through a magazine. Sawyer plays on the floor beneath them, a mess of legos scattered around her until she tires of the colored blocks and climbs up on the couch, planting herself on Lucas' chest.

"Daddy," she asks, pulling the worn hardcover from his hand, "can you tell me a story?"

"Sure Bugs, what do you want to hear?"

She leans down to whisper something to him, her tiny hand cupped around his ear, and when she finishes her secret request the corners of his mouth twitch upwards and he looks over at Peyton who's still engrossed in her magazine.

"Ok," he says pulling Sawyer down to lay across his chest, her head resting right over his heart, "Once upon a time, your mama almost ran me over with her car."

Peyton scoffs into her magazine and when she turns to look over at them, Lucas is grinning like a Cheshire Cat and Sawyer's shoulders are shaking with poorly hidden laughter.

"Lucas, you are such a liar." Off his look she grins, "Fine, it's true, but technically you stepped off the curb in front of my car."

"This is Sawyer's favorite story. I've been telling it to her for years."

"It's about you and daddy, and how you loved each other and made me." Sawyer beams proudly from her spot on Lucas' chest.

"Well, in that case it's my favorite too." She looks over at Lucas, "So come on, let's hear the rest of this story, writer boy."

He's up to 'and then confetti was falling down from the sky, and I looked at your mama and I said, "It's you Peyton,"' when the phone starts to ring.

Her heart is pounding before she even answers the phone, and she can feel it in her gut, that this is it. Sawyer laughs wildly at something Lucas tells her, and Peyton steps out onto the back porch to hear better.

Ten minutes later when she steps back inside Lucas is finishing his story with a grand ending, "and then the most beautiful girl in the world was born."

"Me?" Sawyer asks, grinning because she already knows the answer.

"You," he smiles. "And then we all lived happily ever after. The end."

"Luke," Peyton calls after him from the doorway. "I need to talk to you."

"Baby, go wash your hands and I'll make you lunch." Lucas follows Peyton into the kitchen, where she suddenly becomes a flurry of activity, making sandwiches with shaky hands.

"Peyt, what's going on?"

"That was the adoption agency on the phone," she looks up from her work on the counter and there is unmasked hope painted across her face. "They might have a match for us. They want to meet us first thing tomorrow morning."

"Are you serious?"

"It's a little boy. He's a few weeks old, but he has complications, there's something wrong with his heart. He needs surgery, but his original adoptive parents backed out at the last minute. We can see him tomorrow and talk to his doctors, then make a decision from there. I know it's a lot to take in, but..."

"Bad heart," he says softly, crossing the kitchen to be near her. "The family flaw."

* * *

They meet with their adoption agent the very next morning in her small office, the walls lined with pictures of beaming families with their newest members, and they ask questions and get answers and Lucas holds her hand throughout the meeting.

All they really want is to see the baby.

When they finally make it to the hospital, it's all sterile floors and bright lights, and her heart is pounding so hard she swears she can feel it in her fingertips. They meet with the pediatric cardiologist and he walks them through everything, the defect, the surgery, the recovery time, and the gentle assurance that the baby will lead a normal life when it's all over.

And then they finally get to see him.

There's a sterile room at the end of the hall and they slip on surgical gowns and masks, and then there is a tiny little baby in front of them, protected from the outside world by the walls of his incubator, a reassuring series of beeps coming steadily from the machines that surround him, monitoring his flawed, but steady heart. He's long and slender, with a thick patch of dark hair covering his head.

She knows the instant she lays eyes on him that he is it. And when she looks over at Lucas, at the awe in his eyes, she knows he feels it too. He stares down at the sleeping baby and says, "This is our boy."

* * *

He goes into surgery two days after they've officially adopted him. Lucas and Peyton spend the day at the hospital, pacing the waiting room floor for hours while Brooke takes over Sawyer-duty, school pick-ups and making lunches, the older woman grateful for the excuse to get out of Tree Hill and away from a messy breakup with Julian.

When the doctor finally comes to see them, to tell them that their baby boy is healthy and safe, Lucas takes Peyton into his arms and holds her tight, and she whispers that she loves him over and over into the collar of his shirt.

* * *

Days after his surgery, when his heart pumps perfect and steady, Lucas and Peyton decide to tell Sawyer about her new brother. They pick her up from school, giving Brooke an afternoon off, and take her for ice cream at her favorite spot.

She's three spoonfuls into her sundae when Peyton looks over at her and asks, "Baby, do you remember when mama and daddy told you about getting a new brother or sister, and how it would probably take a long time for him or her to come?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he's here now. And the reason Aunt Brooke came out to stay with you for a while is because mama and daddy have been visiting your new brother at the hospital."

"Why is he in the hospital?"

"When he was born he had something wrong with his heart, so the doctors had to fix him so he could come home with us. He's all better now, and in a week, which is seven days, he gets to come home and live with us."

"Are you okay with that?" Lucas asks her gently.

She stares at them for a few seconds, her brow knitted in serious concentration, and then she nods, "Yep."

"Good," Peyton smiles, letting go of the breath she'd been holding while Sawyer contemplated her answer.

"Your mama and I were wondering if maybe you wanted to go to the hospital with us today and see him?"

"I would like that!"

"Ok," Lucas smiles. "Finish that ice cream and we'll go."

* * *

The first time Sawyer lays eyes on her brother, she doesn't say much. He's sleeping inside the incubator, attached to a heart monitor and a feeding tube, a large bandage covering the healing incision down the middle of his chest.

Lucas looks down at her, at the unreadable expression on her face, and scoops her up into his arms. They stare down at the sleeping boy together and then Lucas says, "Do you see that sticker on his chest with the wire attached to it? That's so the doctors can make sure his heart is beating good. That little tube in his stomach is how he gets food until he's strong enough to drink from a bottle. And that white bandage on his chest is where the doctors made his heart all better."

"Will he always have those tubes?"

"Nope, just for a few more days."

"What do you think, Sawyer?" Peyton asks, pressing a kiss to her daughter's shoulder.

"I like him," she says. "What's his name?"

"He doesn't have one yet."

"I think we should name him Oliver," she says as she lays her hand flat against his incubator.

"You want to name your baby brother after your stuffed pig?" Peyton asks with a grin.

Sawyer nods.

They name him Henry Oliver Scott, but Sawyer only ever calls him Oliver, Ollie for short, and eventually so does everyone else.

* * *

The first time Peyton gets to hold him it's five days after his surgery.

Gone are the heart monitors and the feeding tube, the only indication that the little boy was once broken is the carefully bandaged incision down the middle of his chest. When the nurse places him gently into Peyton's arms, she smiles and tries to swallow back the lump that suddenly forms in her throat. Lucas kneels beside the rocking chair, placing Sawyer on his bended knee, and the two of them stare over at Peyton and Oliver.

There is hesitation on the little girl's face, and he watches her fiddle with her hands, and then he reaches out brush his fingers across Oliver's cheeks. "It's ok to touch him, you just have to be gentle."

Sawyer looks up at Lucas, and then over at her mom, both of them nodding a silent approval, and then she reaches out and takes her brother's small hand into hers. The little boy stirs at her touch, and when he opens his eyes and looks at Sawyer, Lucas swears against all impossibility that the first time Oliver Scott laid eyes on his big sister, he smiled.

* * *

Karen and Lily fly out to LA the day Oliver comes home from the hospital, and for four days their house is filled with noise and laughter and an overwhelming amount of love and support. But Peyton would have been lying if she'd said that she wasn't relieved when they all flew home.

The house is quieter now, settled into a new routine.

Peyton spends long hours on the porch swing out in the backyard, staring out over the canal, Oliver tucked into the crook of her arm, singing him lullabies she used with Sawyer, the ones passed down from her own mother. And some afternoons, she doesn't sing at all. Some afternoons she just sits out on the swing, her fingers ghosting over his raven-colored hair, grateful that he is theirs.

When she picks Sawyer up from school, the little girl spends the entire car ride home recounting her day to an uninterested newborn. It was unfamiliar to them at first, the unmistakable bond two siblings can share, neither one of them ever having experienced it growing up. Lucas' relationship with Nathan had always been something closer to friendship, having first known each other as enemies. It never fails to make her heart clench, seeing how gentle Sawyer is with Oliver, how much she loves him and protects him, how much pride she takes in the fact that she is someone's big sister.

Some nights she'll wake to an empty spot in the bed beside her. When she pads quietly down the hall she usually finds him in the nursery, folded into the rocking chair with Oliver, the both of them fast asleep, a half-eaten bottle tucked between them. She watches them from the doorway, her boys, before she slips back down the hall.

* * *

One Sunday morning, months after Ollie comes home, the four of them are piled into Lucas and Peyton's bed. There's a record playing in the background, The Joshua Tree floating lazily into the open air and mixing with the cool breeze blowing in through the gauzy white curtains. Sawyer hums the chorus to 'Running to Stand Still' under her breath while Ollie bounces in Lucas' lap, his arms flailing wildly, happy screams slipping from his mouth.

Lucas looks at her over the top of Ollie's head, and he smiles at her, wide and unguarded, the way he's looked at her every morning for the last five years, and it still makes her heart race. She kisses her fingertips and sends her silent love his way.

She takes them all in, her husband, her children, her family and there is an overwhelming feeling of serenity that fills every space of her chest.

It's everything she never knew she had wanted, until she met him.


End file.
